For a second year running we had an amazing day down at North Epping Bowling Club for the 2nd Annual Bowls Championship. The weather held off just long enough for us to crown a new champion. Prize? 12 months bragging rights. Well worth it.

It is with great pleasure that I announce that Bendigo Bank - Epping Community Bank Branch have come on board as Gold Sponsors. This sponsorship covers our 3 State Of Origin events and the Charity Bowls Championship all at the North Epping Bowling and Community Club.

What this means is that more money that we raise at these events will end up going to the families that are struggling with children in hospital.

Last week a group of people from Bayer (and a few guests) tackled the relatively tricky 13km Cowan to Brooklyn walk. At Bayer employees get 1 day a year off to raise money or work for a charity - and this was a unique take on that notion. The idea was to raise or pay $25 per person to walk and to my joy they chose Candlelight as the recipient. We walked down to Jerusalem Bay which was pretty easy and it was there I was able to address the group letting them know that up to 300 parents will be sleeping by their sick childs bed and how they would love to be out on a day like we had in the place we were. After this the walk got mean :-). It was a pretty challenging walk but the reward was the cold beer and some food at the end. It was a pretty big success with us raising $705. Another part of Bayers GIVE program is that they will match this dollar for dollar leaving Candlelight with $1,410. And we are already planning next years walk but will be looking at something a little less difficult. A huge thanks goes out to Paul Mensforth for coming up with the idea and choosing Candlelight.

It was a great privilege and honour to be invited to the Children's Hospital at Westmead recognition function as we received the Premier Partner award. We don't do what we do for the awards yet when we receive them it's good because it tells me that we are on the right path - the hospital wouldn't recognise otherwise. It was great to share this moment with Ethan because let's face it, if it wasn't for him, Candlelight wouldn't exist.

A slightly belated Father's Day cake sale at Bayer Australia Ltd saw an amazing amount of generosity as The Candlelight Gift was able to raise around $1,300 for further work with families caring for kids in hospital.

It also saw the appearance of Tina The Tea Lady (though we might need to change this name if she appears again in the future) who was able to raise about $400 of this amount as an "appearance fee".

Huge thanks to everyone who baked some amazing food. The Caramel Slice bake off champion went to David Bardone of IT over Rachel Lyons from AH. Great fun day and we are looking to do more in the future.

4/6/2016 - Despite the result of the series, this years State Of Origin was a great success with good numbers at the Bowlo and Candlelight bringing home around $4,000 from the 3 games. Click here to see some photos of the night.

27/2/2016 - WE ARE FINALISTS!!! in the Sunsuper Dreams For A Better World. What does this mean? We have been given $5,000 to be donated to Westmead to support parents with kids in hospital. But wait there's more!!! Tomorrow morning a video that Sunsuper have created for us will be available to be voted on and if we win that we will receive between $20,000 and $35,000 to support the Child Life Therapy department at Westmead. Details to come.

7/2/2016 - What an amazing day we had on Australia Day. About 150 people turned up for a great day of sun, fun, a bit of cricket, a few refreshments and amazing day that brought the North Epping community together. It was the Woodhill Warriors triumphing in the last over of what was a great game of cricket. We will be back for more next year as everyone there asked us to do. And for Candlelight? We were able to raise $1,700 to be put towards supporting families in children's hospitals.

25th July 2015 - Today The Candlelight Gift was proud to be able to send a cheque for $5,200 to The Children's Hospital at Westmead which will enable them to purchase 4 new parent sofa/beds for the wards to allow parents to have at least the opportunity to have a half decent sleep beside their child. In total this now takes it up to 7 beds proudly donated.